“I wonder if Carlo gave any of his employees the pandemic aid he got from the federal government? He put in for something liek $160,000. No way he shared that money”
– The mayor’s Blue Suit to Josh Resnek
By JOSH RESNEK
For all our new readers, and for those joining us from week to week, please allow me to point out what this column is all about.
I have struck up a lasting relationship with the mayor’s Blue Suit. The Blue Suit has had to suffer through longer than a decade of abuse from the mayor wearing him day after day, tossing him often into a rag heap of dirty clothes and leaving him there until the Blue Suit is wrinkled and totally disheveled – if you can imagine a suit being out of sorts.
The Blue Suit knows everything about the mayor. Everything.
We discuss all of this all the time as we drive around the city in my beaten-up Red Honda Fit, circa 2006.
The Blue Suit confides in me.
I understand his suffering having to be worn repeatedly and abused by the Carlo.
The Blue Suit has suffered through everything with Carlo. FBI investigations. State Police investigations. Allegations of sexual harassment and violence against women. Court hearings. Lawsuits. Whatever the mayor has done during the past decade, the Blue Suit is witness to it.
The Blue Suit has also been forced to suffer through the results of the mayor’s large weight swings.
When he is much heavier, this is torture for the Blue Suit.
The Blue Suit has been torn, stretched, patched, ripped, spilled on, and other more directly human reactions to too much food, et cetera.
Then there are the hot days when the mayor is perspiring and chowing down a meatball sub and slobbering it all over the Blue Suit’s pants. There are trips to the bathroom – and fantastic stories about what goes in the bathroom sometimes!
The Blue Suit gets around rather nicely.
He attracts no attention except for being quoted in this column.
Tuesday I picked him up at 1:30 p.m. in front of Everett High School.
“I just want to get stoned,” the Blue Suit said to me as he sank into the passenger’s seat.
“Why?” I asked him.
“I want to escape my reality. I’m so tired of having to put up with Carlo. You know he has a new suit,” the Blue Suit said to me.
“Yes. I’ve seen it. He can’t compare to you for style and color. The new suit is drab gray with no flair. At least you are a lovely color blue with a nice angle to the shoulders. Your pants are sturdy. That’s so important when dealing with Carlo’s girth. That gray suit will learn soon enough – being worn by Carlo day after day is not like a trip through a rose garden. He’s going to rip that gray suit to shreds,” the Blue Suit said to me.
“You really have no idea what it’s like working for him. You haven’t the slightest clue of what it’s like to be up close with him or when he’s gambling or partying. At those times, there is nowhere to run and nowhere to hide for me. I sometimes feel like tearing myself to shreds,” the Blue Suit complained.
“Does Carlo ever threaten you?” I asked.
“Is the Pope Catholic, Josh? Of course, he threatens me. He threatens everyone. No one in the city is safe from his bullying. You know this,” the Blue Suit said to me.
“Yes, indeed,” I commented.
“Do you know how many times he’s threatened to put me in a Salvation Army used clothing bin? Dozens of times – and after everything, I do for him I should say what he says when- ever he’s asking me for a favor,” the Blue Suit said to me.
“And what is that?” I responded.
“What’s in it for me!”
“Ha. Ha,” I laughed.
I drove out of Everett, through Chelsea and East Boston to Winthrop. The Blue Suit as usual smoked a joint. I made sure the window was open.
“Feeling better?” I asked the Blue Suit.
“Yeah. I’m pretty stoned. That’s so much better for me right now than being straight. Being straight with him is torture,” the Blue Suit said of Carlo.
We arrived at Carlo’s remaining donut shop inside Bolster’s Gasoline Station in Winthrop. There’s no drive-through. Everyone in the donut business knows you can’t make money these days unless you have a drive-through.
“Let’s go in,” the Blue Suit suggested.
I followed him inside.
We were the only customers in the area the shop occupies.
There are tables and chairs, not many. There were two kids working behind the counter.
The Blue Suit ordered a honey dip donut and a black coffee. I got my usual decaf black filled halfway and a sugar-raised donut – even though I don’t eat donuts if that makes any sense.
I tasted a bite of the donut and threw it away.
The Blue Suit whiffed down his honey dip donut.
We sat there for about an hour. It was really slow. Very few customers in what I would describe as a marginal location.
“You say Carlo got $160,000 for this place and that he claimed he has 28 employees,” I asked the Blue Suit.
“Yes, Josh. That is exactly correct.”
I cleared my throat.
“Do you think Carlo whacked up any of the federal aid with the employees?”
“As little as possible. The whole effort was to fake the situation, to take as much as the government would give him and to pocket as much as he could without giving it all away to the employees to save their jobs,” the Blue Suit said to me.
“Are you serious?” I asked.
“As serious as a heart attack, Josh,” the Blue Suit said to me.
“Do you think if anyone from the government looked into his federal aid package and then came down and checked out the business they might wonder where the $160,000 went?” I asked.
The Blue Suit looked at me like I’m a Martian.
“What do you think, Josh?”
“You’re asking me if there is a chance he kept the pandemic federal aid dough for himself?” the Blue Suit asked me.
He hesitated before answering.
“Of course he did!” the Blue Suit said.
“What else would he do with a pile of government cash like that except to keep it for himself. Maybe he used some of it for a trip to Aruba. You never know.”